Shoppability 102: Features for a Shopper Marketer’s Checklist
In Chicory’s previous articles on shoppablity, we debunked the biggest myths about shoppability, and reviewed how shopper marketers can put shoppability to use. In this article, we’re diving more in-depth about the functions that shopper marketers should look for when integrating shoppability into their strategies.
Bundling
As mentioned in our shoppability in action article, CTR for shoppable ads increases as the context where the ad appears becomes more relevant, and also as the advertised product(s) offers a more fully-fledged solution for shoppers.
Average CTR on shoppable display: 0.05%
In-recipe ads CTR for one item: 0.23%
In-recipe ads CTR for a bundle of products: 0.25%
In-recipe ads offering everything needed for a party CTR: 0.41%
For products that are relevant to each other but cannot typically be cross-merchandised in physical stores, such as ice cream, cones, sprinkles and whipped cream, shoppability offers a few things: the opportunity to advertise products with different temperate states together and a shortened path to purchase for shoppers who want to go directly from inspiration to purchase.
Similar to a shared end cap in store, cross-merchandising is a key tactic for driving combined purchases from a consumer. It's essential in the shopper marketer's shoppability toolkit, as well, with the added benefit of not being restricted to physical limitations like refrigeration, pack size and shelf configuration, etc.
The proven effectiveness of merchandising bundled solutions in digital environments for shopper marketers means that cross-merchandising is a must-have in the shopper marketer’s shoppability toolkit.
An Inventory Back Up Plan
The shoppable path to purchase is shorter and linear and takes shoppers directly from inspiration to purchase. In most cases, this is a valuable feature, but it means that the advertised product or products must be available and in-stock to ensure an effective shopper experience.
That’s why it’s vital for shopper marketers to partner with shoppability providers who can ensure that out-of-stocks don’t prevent shoppers from completing a transaction. One inventory tactic includes partnering with clients on a back up list of products to add to cart in decreasing priority for a particular item. The priority defines the order in which products are added to the cart when the shoppable function encounters an out-of-stock item, ensuring that shoppers always have a brand’s product in the cart, no matter the inventory circumstances.
Retailer-Agnostic Landing Pages
Shoppability does not have to be specific to a single retailer. Shoppable experiences can be tailored to one retailer or variety of retailers, depending on a brand’s goal. For alcohol brands, in particular, who cannot drive shoppers to one retailer’s ecommerce platform, multi-retailer, or retailer-agnostic, landing pages that give shoppers their choice of retailer depending on store inventory is a great solution.
Although the mult-retailer experience adds one more step to the path from inspiration to purchase, it gives brands, who are required to give fair and equitable retailer support, the valuable opportunity to experiment with offsite shoppability capabilities and drive sales at retailers where products are offered. And in doing so, shoppability that drives shoppers to make a choice among multiple retailers is still a lower funnel tactic that can drive sales at partner retailers.
Product-Agnostic Landing Pages
For commodity boards and trade organizations who must equitably represent their manufacturers and processors in all marketing efforts, shoppability can enable digital sales support without singling out certain producers. Similar to a multi-retailer, or retailer-agnostic, landing page, brand-agnostic landing pages that lead shoppers to, say, a landing page for all available ground chicken products at retailer.com is an effective way for trade boards to execute effective shopper marketing campaigns while staying brand neutral.
Shoppability on Owned Sites and Channels
While shoppability is most commonly seen on sites that publish content, enabling shoppability on owned sites and channels ensures that a brand is creating seamless experiences for their shoppers.
Shoppability is a tool that brands can use on their owned sites in order to build online sales without actually having to develop full ecommerce logistics teams and capabilities. In other words, it’s a way to go direct-to-consumer and offer shoppers a way to checkout directly from a brand site. Further, it enables brands to get a full view of their sales funnel, from awareness to engagement to purchase, and the metrics provide actionable insights to further refine the customer experience.
However, full shoppable integration isn’t the only way to get shoppability into owned content. Shoppable tech is available in many forms, one of which includes shoppable links that can be used as standalone solutions for any digital touchpoint, outside of full shoppable integration. Shoppable links can be used within CRM newsletters, social media posts and bios, press releases and more. They’re a highly versatile tactic to layer onto existing content without needing to build out full shoppability capabilities.
Shoppability is a smart tactic for shopper marketers to achieve their goals at partner retailers, while exploring opportunities offsite and during the pre-shop phase. Success involves a few key considerations:
Understand the difference between using shoppability effectively and just driving users to product description pages. We believe that true shoppability is basket building and shoppable tech should have add-to-cart functionality.
Use shoppability strategically. There are both effective and ineffective contexts for shoppability. Influencing shoppers in the relevant digital environments when they’re in the purchasing mindset, and enabling tech to get them from inspiration to purchase is a helpful use of shoppability.
Adding direct to cart is just one option for shoppability, and this functions differently depending on how and where a product is sold. For brands and boards that need to be either retailer- or brand-agnostic, shoppable landing pages are the ideal solution for activating effective shopper marketing campaigns that still support retailer partners or manufacturer members.
There are a host of features that shopper marketers should keep an eye out for when considering adding shoppability to their overall marketing strategies in order to effectively offer seamless shopping experiences to consumers and achieve marketing objectives.